tonight on "rock center," they're born that way. infants addicted at birth to prescription painkillers their mothers are abusing. tonight kate snow reports on a growing national problem that doctors, nurses and hospitals already know all too well. >> when a pregnant woman is addicted to opiates and taking opiates. >> the baby gets high just like she does. nobody wakes up the in the morning and says, gosh i'm happy to be a junkie mom. >> i couldn't quit crying. i know it is all my fault. i don't know where it did that to where it really hurts. >> also tonight, making a difference. chelsea clinton goes inside a school in a juvenile prison that

was once notorious for abuse and neglect but is now turning hard cases into scholars. >> what if the kids who need it the most got the best that we had to offer, what if that was our starting point? >> and the great beyond, harry smith takes us to the top of the world where scientists are building something that looks straight out of "star wars" with an ambitious goal to unlock the secrets of the universe. >> whoo-hoo! look at this! ha-ha-ha! >> it is the closest you can get to outer space without a rocket ship. >> we are asking really big questions. what is our place in the universe? why are we here? and to ask big questions you need big technology, state of the art stuff. ♪ baby you're a fire work >> and if you ever wondered how they fire off all that stuff. tonight we go inside the biggest and best july 4th fireworks display in the nation. >> most people think we work one day a year. there is so much that goes into

making this show just right. >> all that and more as "rock center" gets under way. ♪ baby you're a fire work good evening. for those of us who were reporters back in the 1980s it was an awful new trend we were covering at the trend. it was the first time our viewers were hearing about the young, innocent infants. a generation of crack babies born addicted to drugs because of their mother's habit. sadly, a new generation has meant a new habit. prescription pain meds, other powerful drugs in that same category, and now we are seeing the infants born to mothers abusing these drugs. it hasn't received that much attention until now. and as you watch kate snow's report remember these infants have no say in it and they cannot help the fact they were "born that way." >> reporter: a newborn cries out

in the neonatal intensive care unit but this 3-week-old girl isn't tired or hungry she is in pain because her body craves a drug. her mother was addicted to prescription painkillers and now this tiny baby is going through withdrawal. when did this little baby start going through withdrawal? >> almost immediately. >> reporter: the nurse is the director of neonatal services at the children's hospital in florida, she says babies born to moms addicted to painkillers during pregnancy have tremors, digestive problems and cry inconsoleably. >> what can you do to make her feel better? she gets a pacifier. she is bundled, swaddled and we give her morphine. >> every three hours. >> she is on morphine? >> yes. >> reporter: they treat the withdrawal by giving the baby morphine because it is a lot like the drug her mother was taking.

it calms her down like any addict getting a fix. so she is still addicted to a drug right now? addicted to morphine at the moment? and she is 3 1/2 weeks old. >> that's the part that is crazy. >> hard to get your head around. >> reporter: she will be weaned off the morphine slowly and eventually be drug-free and she won't be alone. on the day we visited the neo-natal intensive care unit, 10% of the babies here were being treated for withdrawal. andunusual, sadly it's not. in hospitals across america there is an epidemic of babies born addicted to prescription painkillers like oxycontin and it is only getting worse. florida with its history of pill mills and easy access to prescription drugs is one of the hardest hit states. >> five years ago we might have admitted five or six babies a year for withdrawal.

now we are admitting between 75 and 80 babies a year for withdrawal. that is a big jump. >> reporter: seven or eight times the number? >> right. >> reporter: this baby boy is just three days old. he can't calm himself and needs to be held nearly every waking moment. his whole body feels rigid and tense. you have such neck control. i remember my kids could never do that. their head would flop around. but his head is like this. >> very different isn't it? >> reporter: thint was time for his morphine. each dose lasts three hours then the baby is in pain again. who do you blame? >> i don't blame anybody. >> reporter: it would be easy to blame the moms? >> yeah, it would be easy to blame. but you can't do that. you just have to work with them to take good care of their baby and to hope that they get treatment themselves and that maybe their life will get better as their child's life gets better. >> reporter: it is what

20-year-old kaetlin yost is hoping for. we met her weeks after she had given birth to her daughter annabella. >> what are you doing pretty? >> reporter: she thought she would go to college but tried an oxycodone pill with friends when she was 15 and loved the way it made her feel. >> i guess i loved it too much. i started doing it every day. and then eventually i couldn't get out of bed without it. >> reporter: she told us she resorted to stealing and using fake prescriptions to get pills and then she found out she was pregnant. >> i didn't mean to get pregnant obviously because i was a drug addict i didn't want to get pregnant and possibly hurt my baby. >> reporter: but she did hurt her baby annabella was born addicted to opiates and was going through withdrawal while we were there. >> i couldn't quit crying the day that they discharged me from the hospital and i had to go

home without her and it was all my fault. and i know it's all my fault, you know. i am the one that did that to her. it really hurts. >> reporter: she wants to warn other women not to do what she did. and what sarah ryan did. sarah was 28 and 5 months pregnant when we met. her life had been derailed by drug addiction as these photos illustrate. sarah, as a cute little girl, who took her first vicadin at age 123. as a teen was using every weekend. and by her 20s, mug shots of sarah as a full blown addict, crushing pills and shooting them up. she was in and out of jail and gave up custody of her first three kids. people might say why on earth did you get pregnant again? >> i wasn't planning the pregnancy. >> reporter: you were high? >> sure. pretty much 90% of the time i was high. yep. >> reporter: when she found out she was pregnant this time, sarah checked in to dacco, a drug treatment center in tampa.

there are so many pregnant women addicted to painkillers, that dacco runs a special program just for them. 50 women are enrolled. >> a lot of people just assume i am a bad mother. >> reporter: you might think the best solution would be to get them off the drugs quickly, but going cold turkey can cause pregnant women to miscarry. doctors tell most pregnant addicts to switch to another drug, methadone, which helps curb their cravings and keeps them stable. every morning they take a dose. does it make you feel high? >> lock not at all. not at all. when i am on the methadone. i don't feel anything. i am literally taking it to save me and my child. >> reporter: but she can't save her baby from going through withdrawal because methadone is another form of medication similar to painkillers there is a good chance her baby will be born addicted to that drug. a reality that scares sarah. people may have very little sympathy for you, quite frankly,

people say may, you brought this on yourself. do you believe you made some bad choices? >> most definitely. did i learn from them, oh, yeah. will i make those mistakes again, no. >> nobody wakes up in the morning and says, gosh i am happy to be a junkie mom. >> reporter: dr. david chaffin runs a clinic for pregnant addicts in the heart of appalachia. would you call this a health care crisis for our system as a whole? >> the answer is heck yes. the most common problem in pregnancy in this area right now by far and away is addiction. swamps everything else. >> reporter: he says women are especially vulnerable to getting addicted to prescription painkillers. >> unfortunately, women become addicted harder and faster than men. once they're hooked they're hooked? >> when a pregnant woman is addicted to opiates? >> the baby gets high just like she does. >> reporter: the doctor is

treating some patients with a newer drug than methadone to see if it may cause less severe withdrawal symptoms for their babies. already he says he sees a difference in the womb. >> normal behavior basically. >> reporter: he is moving around. i saw an arm go. if she were still on the painkillers, what would be the difference? >> very still. very quiet. >> reporter: dr. sean loudon, a neo neo-natologist cares for the baby ones it is born. some days can be overwhelming. >> we have had a few day where we reach 65% to 70% of our patients are going through drug withdrawal. >> reporter: 70% of the babies? >> yes. >> reporter: that can be not just overwhelming but expensive. treating these babies costs average of $50,000 often more. they need constant attention and they stay a long time. a normal delivery would be in the hospital for a few days,

right? >> anywhere between 48 and 272 hours. >> reporter: these babies are staying weeks? >> three to four weeks, and some times months. >> reporter: how many months? >> we had a few who have been here three months. >> reporter: logan is 1-month-old. and the doctor expects him to leave the hospital soon. he is still stiff and cries easily. >> he has been difficult to wean. >> reporter: his symptoms could last for months and doctors worry what will happen to all of these babies when their mothers take them home. >> one of the reasons we keep the babies here so long is that they're difficult babies. now, it sets up a perfect storm. i have a woman with no coping skills except to take drugs, going home with a baby that is very difficult to deal with. >> reporter: amber smith is logan any mother and one of the doctor's patients. four years ago she was prescribed painkillers and got addicted. logan is her fourth child. the second to go through

withdrawal. do you feel, i ask this because i am a mom, i would feel really guilty if i felt like i did something to hurt my baby. >> i have cried for days. i just wanted to hold him and tell him how sorry i was. >> reporter: the state is sending logan to live with his grandmother for three months while amber is drug tested to make sure she is still clean. >> as long as everything goes okay, i will be able to get him back. >> reporter: logan looks okay. but there haven't been any large scale, long-term studies to see if babies born addicted to painkillers will have problems later in life. >> i think about learning disabilities. i think about adhd. i think about other behavior problems. but we don't have the kids old enough to make those determinations yet. >> reporter: and you worry about the babies? >> yeah. >> reporter: you worry about their future? >> very much so. i do. because we don't know what will become of that family of that child of that mom.

and -- it's hard. >> reporter: in her 31 years as a nurse, michelle wadell says it is the hardest thing she has ever had to do. treati ining innocent babies whd no choice in their fate and more are arriving every single day. as i walk through this nursery and i look at these babies suffering it makes me sad. they take a lot of time. i am okay with that. they take a lot of manpower. i am okay with that. but to watch them suffer, breaks my heart. i am not okay with that. >> kate, there is nothing more innoce innocent, and nothing more wrenching and we should probably -- note or mirror -- what people are saying to themselves to each other watching this. the anger people are going to feel towards these moms. >> toward the moms. i just want to point out these are the moms that are doing the right thing. okay. these are the mom that have gotten help and are in recovery now. and they have taken the right steps so that they will, eventually, their babies will

recover from the withdrawal and eventually be better mothers they're clean, they're sober. >> you touch on the mystery of long term damages, learning disabilities, adhd, we don't know. >> we don't know. anecdotely they have seen that in 5, 6, 7-year-old kids born addicted. this is so fresh, so new, we are talking kids, 5 to 10 years old now. they haven't studied enough yet. one of the doctors said to us we don't know what the teen years look like at all. >> you chose the locations you chose. but nationally, everyone is dealing with this? >> it is an epidemic. i think you know this, the prescription painkiller use is through the roof. the number of people dying from drug overdoses has tripled over ten years. it's higher than ever in our country's history. so, there are -- states where there are bigger pockets. west virginia, florida. but it is moving. moving across the whole country. we have seen a lot of growth in places like new mexico, kansas, utah. it's spreading everywhere. and no state is immune.

>> it is not a happy story, but it is such an important story. kate snow, thank you as always. up next here tonight -- chelsea clinton reports on a place that has turned itself around so it can now turn kids around and make a real difference untheir lives. and later, harry smith explains what the big deal its at the top of the world and what they expect to get out of it. >> what's the likelihood that there is another speck out there that is something look us? >> i think it is almost inevitable, that first off there is other life out there of some kind. and even, i would even go further and say the fact that there is intelligent life out there is almost inevitable as well. ♪ [ male announcer ] just when you think you have it all... something thinner and sexier comes along to replace you. introducing the new samsung series 9 with the intel core i5 processor, ♪ the world's thinnest 15-inch laptop.

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welcome back. on any given day the department of justice estimates there are more than 70,000 juvenile offenders locked up. most of them are teenagers. and because of their age, they

are still entitled to an education while behind the fence. sadly, they often learn way more about how to be criminals than actual learning. tonight, however, a story about a place where learning is going on, a place that has turned itself around in order to turn young people around. chelsea clinton reports on a program "making a difference." >> good morning, good morning. good morning, hon. >> reporter: it is an ordinary day at the maya angelou academy in maryland. greeting some of the 60 teenagers that study here. and ms. kirk is teaching english. but this is not an ordinary school. >> i will check you. >> reporter: guards are always within arm's reach, locks are plentiful. and so are cameras. because this academy is located within a juvenile correctional center. this is where the nation's capital sends young offenders

for crimes like assault, auto theft and armed robbery. >> we are also going to talk about which strategies are in place to hold you accountable for your actions. >> reporter: the students are called scholars here and one of the first people they meet is samantha simpore, the behavioral specialist. she knows their stories because they are also hers. >> i tell them how i came from a home where there was drugs involved. i know what that venom tastes like and it is hard. ms. samantha, how do i get through, when some one has killed my brother. that's deep. >> reporter: what's also deep is the mep the memory of how the school began. it is where sichltmpore was incarcerated. >> the first time i came to oak hill was in '86, it was dirty, no education, physical assaults.

you get restrained. you get thrown in a room with shackles. >> reporter: and those decaying rooms are still here as the a constant reminder just down the road on the same property as the academy. oak hill was finally shut down five years ago and replaced by the maya angelou school. >> one of the neat things about this place. >> reporter: it was started by david diminici, experts on treating juvenile offenders. they had a different idea about what a school should provide inside a prison. >> what if the kids that needed it the most got the best of what we had to offer. what if that was the starting point president? kids who need the most will get the best? >> reporter: they fired all the teachers, changed it from punishment and violence to one of therapy and high expectations. at first, long time correctional staff members were skeptical. >> they may not have thought we knew what we were doing. but we were hard workers and we weren't going to quit. >> reporter: they asked the guards not to use brute force if a conversation with an angry

teenager might work better. we saw it over and over again in our visit. a kid misbehaved. guard had him walk it off. >> when you step back there aren't that many people who think the appropriate way to discipline your own 17-year-old is to throw them on the floor, make them grow spread-eagle, punch them, hold them behind their backs and put them in cuffs. the trick here is when they do something right, you praise them, you acknowledge them and you encourage them to do better. >> reporter: many are doing belter. students who arrive with 4th and 5th grade reading and math levels improve their scores, teachers who arrive hating teachers soon can name their favorites. like 24-year-old chelsea clerk who started here almost a year ago. what would you say to a critic who would wonder why are you teaching these kids shakespeare? >> we can't lower the bar here because we have kids who may not be able to read or who are years behind in their growth. so if we were to say we just aren't going to incorporate

texts like shakespeare or higher level text or saying we expect less from you. >> reporter: and those high expectations extend beyond academics. >> respect is essential to our program here. >> reporter: principal arnetta young. >> it is a small enough school you can touch everyone, understand their stories and know what their needs are and be responsive. some of our scholars have had tremendous hurdles to overcome. >> reporter: the goal its to give scholars what many of them have had precious little of. hope. >> there is still this light in their eyes. there is still this spark. they still want to learn. they still want to be successful. they want to work. >> reporter: it costs $820 tax dollars a day to house and educate an offender here. it is likely and unfortunate this may be the best public education these kids ever get. >> there are no apologies for this being a great school. all of the things we are doing out here we can and should and must do for these kids before they get here.

so that there is no here. >> reporter: do you believe because you have been able to do it here, it can be done anywhere? >> yes. if there is the right commitment of resources and there is the right leadership. >> reporter: that commitment has changed the life of scholars like marquises. he has been here almost a year. >> reporter: when you are here, they refer to you as a scholar. how does that make you feel? >> you're able to do bigger, belter things. >> reporter: he told me he dreams of owning his own company or being a hotel manager and is proud of the acceptance from virginia state university. he will start there this fall. >> it came and i was excited. i was actually proud of myself. i laminated it. >> what we are frying trying to say there is another way. we'll show you and prove it. >> our thanks to special correspondent chelsea clinton. up next for us here tonight what it takes to make last night's

big show on the hudson go off repeatedly and successfully. our cameras were imbedded. we were there when the lights went out. we have the inside story straight ahead. graduated high school today. my crowning achievement thus far. mom took a bunch of amazing pictures. but she can't share them. it's her data plan. she's stressing about overages because she already downloaded a fifteen megabyte cat video. [ laughing ] aww. you have to see this. i've already seen it, nana. like a hundred times. [ male announcer ] why limit your iphone? switch to sprint. the only network with truly unlimited data for your iphone.

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you are watching "rock center" here in studio b in new york. would you be interested to know that 66 giant telescopes costing hundreds of millions of dollars are pointed at the sky at a remote desert outpost. ready or not the story is on its way after this.

welcome back. if you were watching on nbc last night, then you saw once again why they call the macy's fourth of july spectacular the biggest and best planned annual explosion anywhere. tonight we get a very rare view from the inside. our guide will be gary souza who designed the whole thing making

him part pyro guy, part choreographer and making the hudson river our latest stop on our road trip this summer of 2012. >> fireworks is an art. people all along that watch w it are captured and mesmerized by it. i think that is the one time they all sit there in america and say, wow. my name is gary souza, i had the pleasure of working with the macy's fourth of july fireworks show for nearly 30 years. are you ready? there they go. ufos. >> i started out as a young guy working here with my father. and now we have, about three generations that come out and work on the display here. back in early in the 1900s, my great grandfather came over to hawaii from portugal. and the portuguese would celebrate these holy ghost celebrations in each community.

that's what led him into fireworks. >> how is everything going. >> most people think we work one day a year iayear. it's look what do you do with the rest of your life. this process is at least a year-long process. for me a year and a day. it starts when i am watching last year's show and seek what effects worked. what colors look really well. then as we go on into fall, we go out and shop. go to the manufacturers, visit their factories. you have to go out and find fireworks that are going to fit for this type of a venue. >> take it easy. >> have a good day. >> we bring 40 pyrotechnicians, come and work and set up. 40,000 aerial shells. run 5 miles of wire. run it back to 13 computers. so when this show is linked up to the music all these barges are going to fire in synchrony and fire the 40,000 shells

exactly where we want them to be. >> i like the color and how big they get. >> makes me feel like a 5-year-old again. >> they're really exciting. yeah. >> you can't wait to just see them. >> go, kev. >> i work with the macy's team to come up with the musical score. each song has its own feeling to me. when i listen to the song, i feel something. i feel a color. i feel a dance. i feel a movement. let any get a show! ♪ in this year's show there is a taylor swift song "sparks fly." sparks needed to fly. and we have these swinging stars in different colors. ♪ if tomorrow >> "god bless the usa" lee greenwood. multicolored. matching all the colors of the flags around the world. ♪ god bless the usa

some times it is rumble, rumble, rumble. shoot 1,600 shells in 3 seconds. because the sousa trombones are going off in the sousa march, john phillips sousa. got to have the music match the fireworks there. ♪ ♪ the answers are all ♪ for me the favorite part uh the show is the golden cascade, the golden mile as we call it. and "one moment in time" this year. cascade in gold, 1,000 feet high, down to the water, a mile wide width of the river. and this year we added a little bit of a strobing tip that is so big, so dramatic, so majestic that you are just oohed and ahed out. you are done. ♪ i will be i will be free ♪ [ cheers and applause ] >> there we go, baby! got them all! [ applause ] whoa!

>> my motivation is the memory of those faces of the people around watching the show. looking across the river and saying, "holy cow" there is a lot of people here. >> our thanks to gary souza who gets to blow things up for a living. up next here tonight, we are going to go a bit higher and try to look at things never seen before from planet earth. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] what's the point of an epa estimated 42 miles per gallon if the miles aren't interesting? the lexus ct hybrid. this is the pursuit of perfection.

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power. some believe underground lines could prevent future headaches. but at what cost? and, the triple digit temperature threat is already giving way to deadly consequences. find out what's in store this weekend with the 11 insta weather plus forecast. tonight on 11news, right after rock center. [501]1030 tease-tape 1

welcome back. tonight we'll show you the most ambitious attempt ever made by humans based on planet earth to see what is all around us in space. tonight, harry smith takes us to another continent and to a higher altitude to show us this enormous effort to look right into the "great beyond."

>> reporter: in northern chile there is a desert, it is bone dry and more than a mile high. it is a place of spellbinding beauty, a desert that was once the bottom of a sea. tourists come here to the village of san pedro and there is an allure to this place, especially at night. so out here on this beautiful night and i can't help. we brought an astronomer with us to chile and stopped at a from town. >> being able to see jupiter and four moons is pretty rocking stuff. >> that's what galileo saw when he made his first telescope, the four moons of jupiter. >> reporter: if galileo was alive today he would have loved this, high on a plateau nearby, are constructing telescopes that will be able to probe deeper into space than ever before. before we can look around there is the matter of blood pressure

and blood oxygen level tests. we are at 10,000 feet here and will soon be ascending to 16,500 feet, altitude sickness can kill you. the good news, we checked out okay. so what is this place? this is the base camp for the highest observatory ever built. a wonderland of technology. made so byhe sophistication of state of the art radio telescopes which are built in europe, japan and north america. shipped here and then reassembled. look at that. i mean they're physically, right. >> rotating it. >> yeah. >> reporter: and then they literally are by hand, rotating it around. >> 15,000-pound dish. >> reporter: and here's what a do. space is filled with things we can't see, radio waves, microwaves and gamma rays. the dishes really are antennae that can pick up the signals from nearly the edge of the university. so this is cool, you have never been to this exact place?

>> no, i am pretty psyched. >> reporter: our final destination. is 7,000 feet above where we are. >> reporter: 16,500 feet. with what is up here it is the closest you can get to outer space without a rocket ship. what is it like to finally be here? >> it is freaking awesome. this is the state of the art observatory in the world. this is the largest, most sophisticated ground based observatory the world has ever created. it will blow everything else out of the water. it could take weeks or months of observing to do what it will do in a day or hour. so it is, it's a revolutionary leap. we started taking data in early science mode. >> reporter: we brought scott because he is one of the top young radio astronomers in the world. we needed some one to explain what it is, the amma. why put all of this in this place? >> one word, water. there is water in the

atmosphere. if we are at a very high and dry site. water will not block the radio waves. >> reporter: radio waves that have traveled through space for millions and billions of years. soon, there will be 66 antennae up here, spread out across this plateau. and they can all be pointed at the same time at a patch of outer space. >> whoo-hoo! look at this! ha-ha-ha! >> they're definitely doing a dance. spinning one way, some the other. >> this one is stationary. that one moved before. this is radio astronomy ballet. we were invited up inside one of them to take a closer look. this is look being on your own amusement park ride, right? >> totally geeky amusement park ride, yes. >> reporter: you are giving it the directions now? i was even allowed to operate it. and brian williams as nerdy as you are i know you have reached your peak of human jealousy at

this exact moment. god, look at these, the mountains back there, talk about desert, jeez. we should say at 16,500 feet we have been up here for a couple of hours. how do you feel? >> i'm a little punchy. >> reporter: time then for a hit of oxygen. installing all this technology up here was described to us as second only in difficulty to building in antarctica. example -- how do you move a 115-ton antenna with something that could only be designed to move a 115-ton antenna. are you driving it? he has got the controls for this gigantic machine right there. he is driving it as it will come in and pick this thing up. that is very cool. it takes more than six hours to move one from the base camp to the plateau.

when you are around this for a day or so it is almost hard to comprehend just how much technology is involved in putting these things together and making it all work correctly. >> we're asking really big questions, deep questions about what its our place in the universe? why are we here? how are stars made? why do they have planplanets? how are planets forming? to ask big questions you need big technology, big engineering, state of the art stuff. that's what we have got here. you need it. that's what amma has. >> reporter: based at the national radio astronomy observatory in charlottesville and a professor at the university of virginia. he graduated from west point, served as an artillery officer and got a ph.d. from harvard. he first fell in love with space when he saw carl sagan's "cosmos" on pbs. a passion he shared with us. what are we looking at here? >> one of the most impressive

images in my personal opinion that human kind has ever created this is known as hubble ultradeep field. the stunning thing in here, on the screen right now there is a total of one star. that's this guy right here with the little cross. >> reporter: right. >> everything else you see in this image is a galaxy. >> reporter: in this whole picture, this is the only star? every other representation of light out there is a galaxy. >> that's right. >> reporter: and a galaxy is like the milky way. >> that's right. billions of stars. hundreds of billions of stars. >> reporter: this picture aimed at just a chunk of the sky it can't be the whole sky? >> no, tiny, tiny, tiny little chunk of the sky. >> reporter: it is breathtaking. it is. it will do this. >> reporter: essentially what all radio telescopes can dupeo see in the dark. if you can see in the dark you can see how stars are burned. to create test pictures, amma

pointed at two galaxies, colliding in space, 70 million light years away. optical telescopes couldn't pierce the dark clouds of gas and dust, but amma detected bright yellow areas for the first time where stars are actually forming. and as carl sagan taught us all those decades ago. >> the earth and everything living thing are made of star stuff. >> they process and make carbon, oxygen, nitrogen that is in the air, the iron that, that's in your blood, we are star stuff. every single atom in your body has gone through the life cycles of many generations, several generations of stars. which is really mind blowing to think about. >> reporter: there is some nutty stuff going on up there? >> there is. i get to do this every day. i love my job. >> reporter: what is the likelihood there is another spk o -- speck out there that is something like us. >> almost inevitable. first off there is other life out there of some kind.

i would go further and say there is intelligent life out there that is inevitable as well. this has been strengthened dramatically in 10, 15 years, we now know, many, many stars, matter of fact the majority of stars in our galaxy have planetary systems, planets like around our own sun. hundreds of billions of planets out there like our own galaxy there has got to be life in my opinion. >> in huckleberry finn, mark twain wrote about the stars. huck said we used to lay on our backs and look up at them and discuss whether they was made or just happened. why is it important to understand the universe? >> well, on a day-to-day basis it is not. we can live our lives, you can be born, live your whole life, and die not knowing anything about what a star is, what a galaxy is, there are planets going around the sun. you would be fine. people do that for hundreds of thousands of years. man kind is a curious beast. what its our place? how do we fit in?

what makes this whole thing tick? how does it change with time? at least i want to know those things. i can't believe people aren't curious and dying to know why we're here. >> reporter: the telescopes, high in the chilean dertz asert in a place named by the ancient. the people used to come and pray to the earth mother. and this is the place where their dreams and prayers took flight. socrates said man must rise above the earth to the top of the atmosphere and beyond. for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives. >> where i am from, you say pacha mama. your remark cut me to the quick. were you half of the space geek when you were young that i was. >> i did watch all of the space flights and i was locked on to walter cronkite and we all memorized all the astronauts names and all that stuff. but this is a geek's paradise. >> clearly.

and just a beautiful spot on earth. well a couple brass tacks questions who is putting up the money? would money exist if they were starting to day? >> no. >> when are we going to see something? >> starting to get data already. all done in a year or so. this was put together by europeans, us, a lot of money from japan and chile. >> are we really hopeful that the real benefits are going to start flowing? >> the most important thing about a thing like this is, it its reaching. we can't stop reaching. and i -- it goes back to galileo again. 500 years ago, he puts a couple telescopes and walks out and says guess what the earth is not the center of the universe. there is still a lot of things to learn out there. >> why do i feel look you are trying to sell me a telescope. harry, thank you very much. great stuff. i envy you the places you get to go. >> thank you. >> well, no problem. our pleasure. there is much more of harry's travels along with a taste of

what all this might reveal about our universe. and we have placed it on our website. land locked as it is here on earth. up next here this evening. do we really need to hear this? how it is that tennis turned from a quiet, sedate sport into a festival of grunting. and it is part of the game for good? [ man on radio ] it's a scorcher out there folks... stay refreshed. hey boys, i have an idea. [ female announcer ] new lipton tea & honey. sweetened with honey, made from real tea leaves and real fruit flavors! mmm...that is so good. ♪ [ female announcer ] lipton tea & honey. real is refreshing. ♪ it's never felt so real ♪ no, it's never felt [ all ] ♪ so right [ female announcer ] new lipton tea & honey. lipton: drink positive! ian italian dinner for 2r $25. where choice is on the menu.

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this is the high season for tennis people. the folks who like playing it and the fan whose like watching it on tv. and watching it with the sound up is an entirely different experience than it was just a generation ago. it's because of grunting, that primal grunting as if the

athlete is involved in a life or death struggle when in fact they're just swinging an incredibly lightweight racket at an oncoming yellow fuzzy ball. [ grunting ] >> reporter: it is hard to pinpoint exactly when it started but we can say this -- who ever that first person was who felt the need to grunt when hitting a moderately difficult tennis shot, well they ended up a game changer, even a visionary, but not like the good kind of visionaries. >> every shot you hit, you uh, uh, you make this disgusting noise. uh. >> i didn't know i was doing it. >> you grunt every shot. it's annoying. it is throwing me off. >> you know the grunt. >> uh! >> it recently reached the level of the kardashians. >> uh. >> uh. >> tennis spectators and viewers at home took years to get used to what sounded like hard labor in prison. ♪ at least the kind of prison where they demand you wear white.

and a heads-up about the olympics. we already know shot putters don't put quietly they're really loud. [ grunting ] >> the hammer throwers aren't a gentle bunch either. [ grunting ] fo now we have heard hurdlers grunting out of the box for their jumps. >> the first hurdle. >> there are some smart folks who study our society who think this grunting is part of something larger. the celebration of self, the individual comes first. you are the star of whatever you are doing and go ahead and express yourself and please don't worry about us. and to be fair, it's not just the olympians, it can also be that guy alongside you that you are forced to work out with at your gym who is apparently anxious to let everyone in on just how hard his weight training really its. thankfully there is a new

movement by the womens tennis association to drive excess grunting out of the sport. at this florida tennis academy, they are trying to teach the grunting out of their athletes. the women's professional tour is developing electronic devices that will limit the acceptable amount of noise coming out of these players. of course that might lead to some heated battles with the umpires and those -- >> answer my question! the question, jerk! >> will not be the subject of any sound restrictions. >> please tell me! >> our attempt to take stock of a big development in the world of sports over the years. and that is our broadcast for this week. next week, harry smith continues his reporting on the cruise ship that ran aground off of italy killing 32 people. he was there after it happened six months ago. and next week he'll report on some gaps in the safe guards you might think are in place, but aren't.

>> cruise ships ear ridare regi in foreign countries which provide tax advantages to the owners and also puts the ships outside u.s. jurisdiction once they're a few miles offshore. >> once you step on board that, you have entered a new nation. i call it the nation of carnival. and the only people that are responsible then for you is carnival. >> we have learned it is a totally different world out there as far as your rights are concerned. >> the cruise industry is a large industry and plays a lot of people and they have a lot of sway in washington. >> that its next week on "rock center." thk you for joining us this week. i'm brian williams. good night from new york. your late, local news begins [captioning made possible by constellation energy group] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news tonight. >> the heat is our big story tonight. a week of scorching